Hong Kong & Macau

During the last Golden Week in Chinese history, we decided to visit Hong Kong. The last, as from the next year (Mainland) Chinese will not have one week free for the 1st may, but more moderate holidays, as in the rest of the world.
Sure, in Taiwan we did not have any free day, how they could celebrate not-working? Unanimaginable.

Hong Kong is for Taiwanese what Trieste was for former Yugoslavia: place for shopping. Up to the level that tourist agents sell packages flight+hotel+bon for 10kg more luggage :-D . It is 1.5 hour flight from Taoyuan Intl. and it really feels as jumping to the nearby city for a stroll in the markets and shopping malls.
We came at night, and our first impression was glow of the Hong Kong island, as visible from Kowloon.

Mala shopping, yes ;-)

Hong Kong deserves its fame completely ,it is 7 trillion people dense packed piece of land with tall skyscrapers and feeling of Jackie Chan movie everywhere you go. Incredible place, but liveable, really. There are even some trees ;-)

No, it is not at all so bad, Kowloon, from the window of YMCA hotel nearby Mong Kok:

Classical view of street in Hong Kong:

Notice thet the double decker is a TRAM, not bus!

OK, there is traffic jam sometimes, and there are also busses, as we see:

But this you could expect in such a city, no? Use metro, it is cheap and convenient. Ferries from Kowloon to Hong Kong also operate well, albeit crowdy...it reminds Istanbul a bit. Here one viewe to waters of Hong Kong:

They have also longest fast track, going uphill from the center, 800m long

Funny is it is one way. so up to 10 AM it is downhill, when people goto work, and later it is uphill. Views from it are...classical.

Also classical?

Sometimes Escher would have fun, one of the series of such views:

Sure, I could go like this for next 100 pics, but it is time to move to ...Portugal.

Macau is smaller (some half million) city, but is really a strange one to see here in Asia. Portuguese left more mark here than English in Hong Kong, I am curious why? Only longer time spent here, or it has something to do with Catholic Church etc.? Please yourself.

Really as in Porto or Lisabon:

And it is not?

Well, some minor elements are different :-D

They also have their 'Gedaenkniskirche' (like in Berlin):

Packing density is much larger in Macao than anywhere in Europe:

Home altars for burning incenses are here differently posted than in Taiwan:

You can even find some bike-rikshas

In general, view IS a bit different than Europe...and Asia. It is Macau, mix.

This IS Portugal, anyone who was there will remember their crazy passion for loooong bridges. In Macau it also left some trace:

This is our vehicle for coming back to Hong Kong, one hour fast ride.

Interesting event our last day in Hong Kong: we found, by chance, 2nd hand book store. One exactly as should be in Megalopolis, books of mixed provenience, really a collection from everywhere. Owner book-wormish, real book-lover. We chatted some half hour, he exposed to us his philosophy of book-sharing, some funny stories about people leaving books anonymous in front of the door, for him to protect them... As books in sub-tropic are endangered, highly endangered species. In fact, I failed to find some big book store, anything like Page One in "101" in Taipei. Sure, we were there for too short, I believe there is some really good one there, but...for sure HKong is not the city of books. In fact, culture here is something else.

And then back home...megalopolis of the Hong Kong airport will from now on have much different, more familiar taste for us.

I bought there, and am just reading Chun Sue 'Beijing Doll', and again, utter vacuum of thought, some of the sense of 'Christianne F.' in Germany 30 years ago {!}. Seems they are somewhere on that level now, maybe coming to 'eighties. Interesting.
No history, culture or geography in first 100 pages, and I am sure there will not be in the next (and last) 100 pages. "What for? We are Chinese!", as if everything here would be speaking.